Quail Quest 2: The Queasy Queen

Of course Morgana (Chryssa) would be participating in the human chess game. Naturally, the humans in question were actually quails, and those quails were actually small bird Pokemon. Chryssa didn't question the logic-- she realized right away that where logic was unsound, the rules themselves required a certain amount of flexibility, and by flexibility she meant abuse.

"Pidove to D4," she commanded, swinging out one hand like an army general (from what anime?). While the Pidove set about attacking the club-wielding orc currently positioned in that square, she kept a sharp eye out for the so-called 'quintessence' that was supposed to appear any time now. She assumed it was like the cherry in Pac Man.

Anyway, it had yet to spawn, so Chryssa just bided her time. There were other players in this game - unlike chess or checkers, the tiles took up the entire fantasy battlefield in a panoramic view. There was nothing saying she couldn't cross over onto other players' territory to harvest quintessence, and she'd already tested whether she could.

A flicker of glowing purple light caught her eye. That must be it! "Pidove, collect that quintessence!" she ordered the Pidove with the bishop hat nearest her and the quail took off with an alarmed coo, swooping across the board towards the item. Hopefully nobody else had seen it first!

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"Yes... sweet quintessence," whispered Chryssa throatily, holding the small vial of glowing purple essence in her hand. "The fifth element... obtained in the fifth hour... of the fifth year of the fifth millennium. With this, I shall triumph!" She raised her voice, letting it ring out over the battlefield. It was absolute bullshit, but the Armies of Darkness couldn't know that. She was surprised they were coordinated enough to even use the grid the game was set on.

She was distracted from her epic plot/ploy (those words had to be related. Siblings in another life) by recognizing Big Bee, Bergamot's Fishing Rival. The shock of seeing someone she knew from UNOVR while playing in-person as herself took her aback for a moment. She narrowed her eyes. How should she react? Bergamot, she knew, would laugh loudly and villainously behind her hand and proceed to mock the Bandana Guy for his noobish attempts at cheating. Bergamot was dramatic. Noisy. Not subtle. She didn't care about anything, least of all herself.

But Chryssa was curious. In the game, she would never question the people around her being anything other than real. They were all players of the same game. But here? Who was Big Bee, really? Another NPC superimposed over the world? Another bit player blindly steered by the hand of God, conspiring to trap her in this false facsimile of life?

"I wonder," said Chryssa from behind Big Bee. There was no real warning for how she got there. Perhaps the wheels on her chair were rimmed with soundproof insulation. Gray eyes, the color of Pidoves and white orcs, drifted from his sneakers to his face. "Are you really here? Or are you just an apparition? No, that's not the right word. A memory, I mean."

She gave a vague smile. It was unclear whether it was directed at Big Bee or simply for her own benefit. "You can take this," she said suddenly, offering him the vial of quintessence. It shone with ominous amethyst light, painting shadows into the hollows of her cheeks. "My bountiful lands have plenty to spare."

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Orion was a man of many skills, his grandfather had spent a small fortune on ensuring that his summers were enriched with all sorts of day camps and activities in lieu of a happier home life.  He could shoe a horse, tie a clove hitch, and navigate by the stars if he needed to.  But he was fucking AWFUL at chess.  He didn't have the patience for the whole thing, learning opening arrangements like the Gonglesnatch open, nor did he really much care about the whole play counter play sort of thing.  It was like fencing if you were a nerd, and frankly he preferred to slug it out with his actual fists.  

So naturally he picked a rookadee (the only chess move he remembered being a rook) and just started running it down the middle the way only he could.  Or that is to say, only he would.  Most games like this didn't expect people to be ready to throw hands with spooky scary forces of darkness, but Orion fucking lived with his shit.  Him and his bird bro were brawling with the best of them trying to get that gold- er, quintessence? 

It was only a couple orcs in that Orion spotted Bee and another woman ahead of him, and he quickly caught up, catching only the back half of their conversation and injecting himself with all of the subtlety of a battering ram.  "I mean, given that it takes time to perceive things, and for your brain to process them, are we ever really in the present?  Or are we always living just a little bit in the past?  Life in the lag?"  He would give Bee a thump on the shoulder.  

"Anyways, sorry to butt in, time to barrel onwards.  Byeanara"

And with that he was off to the races again, leaving Bee and the strangely familiar woman in his dust.

"Well yeah. Of course there is!" Big Bee said, illegally moving around the board until he found one of his Quails (a Hoothoot). "The idea that everything ends once we die is just crazy! I mean, if that were true then what would the point be? All our experience, all our achievements just gone?" He ignored the blaring announcements and fed the vial of Quintessence to his bird. There was a flash of violent purple light. He shielded his eyes and as it faded beheld the beautiful, fully-grown form of a Regal Noctowl.

"You have restored my crown," said the Noctowl, in a voice like a sunlit council chamber. The Queenly Quail was tall and lithe and wore a feather cloak of gold and purple.

An orc burst from the forest nearby and she vaporized it with a single look. "The front line calls," she said, taking flight and following orioncayge's trail.

Big Bee watched her go before turning back to Bergamot Gristleborg. "See? Things like that are way too cool not to mean something. Not to leave some imprint on the universe. So yes I believe in life after death. I believe that once we die everything goes black, and then we take off the helmet and experience something strange and different and just as beautiful. And maybe if we're lucky there are more worlds that spiral off from there, and we can continue these adventures forever."

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